Who Benefits from Community Service?

The answer to, “who ultimately benefits from community service and how” is a very complicated question to answer. I know that for many organizations, it can directly help those in need. For example, I am volunteering for the Preble street soup kitchen in Portland as someone who will help package clothes, toiletries, etc. and bring it to those people directly. I also will help prepare meals to be brought directly to people who need it. However, with some organizations, it can be hard to know where your donated time and money is going and for what purpose. As outlined in Humanitarian Work Reinforces Oppression, we know that Americans love to play the savior of other countries, mainly to make ourselves look better. We are often ignorant when visiting other countries with different cultures than us – by making many assumptions about their beliefs. We also know from this article that, “Studies show that among many NGOs, the bulk of donations go to advertising costs, salaries, cushy accommodations, that “free” tote bag, and so on. Very little of your “for less than a dollar per day” goes to the crying children on your TV screen,” (Hernandez, pg 3). I think it is sad that a lot of charities are unreliable and it isn’t talked about enough. I think it is also important to talk about the fact that volunteering doesn’t necessarily mean that you will be surrounded by people that you get along with. Many people have this idea that the environment would be easy going – but volunteer work can be taxing emotionally and physically, causing people to become agitated. It is important to have volunteer leaders, in my opinion, to be there to help de-stress people and allow for them to have mini breaks if they need it. This is important to consider for the final project as we must always be trying to make volunteer work positive and impactful for all who is involved. It is also important to have volunteering be talked about more in an educational setting. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 25.2 percent of the population of volunteers in 2015 for the main organization were made up of students. If you put that into perspective, that is a lot and could be even more if volunteering was more talked about and encouraged in schools nationwide. A lot of times, it is only talked about if you have to do it, which does not ultimately bring the positive awareness that you want it to. The effort of the 62 million people volunteering as of 2015 is not enough, either. The latest statistics from 2017 show that it only went up from 62 million to 64 million. For the past ten years it has been slowly going up, but at a more stagnant rate. 

• LB

Published by Statista Research Department, and Feb 22. “Number of Volunteers in the U.S. 2017.” Statista, 22 Feb. 2022, https://www.statista.com/statistics/189297/number-of-volunteers-in-the-united-states-since-2003/. 

Hernández, Andrew. “4 Ways Humanitarian Work Abroad Reinforces the Oppression It Should Be Fighting.” Everyday Feminism, 14 Aug. 2020, https://everydayfeminism.com/2015/10/humanitarianism-oppression/. 

“Volunteering in the United States.” U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 25 Feb. 2016, https://www.bls.gov/news.release/volun.toc.htm.